


A Bitter Cup

by Minor_Coon



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Asexual Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21803242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minor_Coon/pseuds/Minor_Coon
Summary: It’s Light’s wedding night.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	A Bitter Cup

In the kitchen, Light was preparing tea. It was a humid summer night – the windows were open, and a clinging breeze blew in from outside. Absentmindedly, Light loosened his tie. The kettle was beginning to boil; it emitted a high, keening moan.

“Light-kun,” Misa said from behind him. Her voice was low and sounded steamed up, like the condensation on the metallic surface of the kettle.

Light turned off the heat, and the sound died. He poured the boiling water over the tea leaves, watching them expand and darken. His whole body ached. The wedding party hadn’t broken up until one o’clock. It had been seven hours of smiling and laughing under the hot pavilion lights, acting interested and charming as he danced with distant relations, pretending that this was the happiest night of his life.

Light wanted sleep. Failing that, he wanted his tea, strong and bitter.

Pasting an enigmatic smile on his face, Light turned around slowly.

Misa had removed her wedding gown. She’d worn a black dress, an elaborate concoction of silk, lace, and cascading ruffles. Light had worn white. It had been Misa’s idea – her idea of a joke, he supposed. Light hadn’t cared enough to object. They’d looked a stunning couple, anyway, even if the proper colors were reversed. Everyone had said so.

Misa was blushing a blotchy scarlet. She was standing awkwardly, her hands resting gingerly on her thighs, and her chest was held out, as if for his inspection. Light looked her up and down slowly. She wasn’t wearing anything except a thin bra made from black lace and an equally flimsy thong. Light stared at her, mindful of the tea brewing behind him.

“I feel overdressed,” he said finally.

Inwardly, he grimaced. _What an inane remark_. It wasn’t like him at all.

Misa took a step forward, the flush on her cheeks darkening. “I can help with that,” she said. Her pupils were black and blown, like inverted moons.

“The tea is steeping,” Light said. “It's almost ready.”

In four sets of forty, to be precise. He counted time in sets of forty now, even without looking at his watch.

“What kind of tea?” Misa asked.

“Black,” Light said, catching Misa’s quick frown. Misa hated black tea, but she would never admit it to him.

Instead of answering, she came forward, until she was standing only a few centimeters from Light. He could feel the heat radiating off her bare skin. She undid his tie slowly, and then began working on the buttons of his shirt. Light said nothing. He felt strangely distant from his own body. A breeze passed across his bare chest, making him shiver. Goosebumps rose on his skin.

Running her hand down his chest, Misa noticed. “You’re cold,” she said, surprised. “I’ll close the window.”

It took Misa less than forty seconds to cross over to the window, latch it shut, and turn back to face Light, smiling.

They kissed. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and then dipped lower. She slipped her hands under the cloth of his pants.

Without thinking, Light broke out of her embrace.

Misa stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Her lipstick was smeared, marring her face like the innards of a burst plum.

“The tea’s brewed,” he said coolly.

The wounded expression on Misa’s face was replaced by a look of irritated fondness. “You’re so precise, Light-kun.”

Light grimaced, but turned up his lips while he did so, knowing Misa would mistake his look for a smile. “I guess so,” he said, running a hand through his hair to complete the sheepish look.

He turned his back and walked into the kitchen, hearing the soft flop of Misa’s house-slippers behind him.

Light removed the tea-strainer from the tea-pot, noting the dark color of the brew with satisfaction. He opened a cabinet, peered into it, and frowned.

“Misa honey,” he said.

“Yes?” Misa said. She placed her hands on his back, startling him. He hadn't realized she was standing so close.

“I don’t see my mug in here. Maybe I left it in the bedroom?”

The faint suggestion was sufficient.

“I’ll check for you!” Misa chirped.

In the short time she was gone, Light prepared the tea, his hands moving with the ease of long practice.

Misa came back shaking her head. “I didn’t see it.”

“Never mind,” Light said. He handed Misa her tea-cup with his most charming smile. “I made it special for you.”

She eyed the dark liquid in the cup doubtfully, but took a small sip. At once, her expression brightened. “You added honey. And –” Her brow scrunched in concentration. “I taste something else, too –”

“I steeped it with rose buds,” Light interjected. He smiled at Misa again. “I know you don’t love black tea taken straight.”

Misa glowed. She took another long sip. “You know me so well, Light-kun.”

Light sipped at his own tea, enjoying the way the heat burned against his tongue. They drank in silence; the only sound was the tick of the clock on the mantle.

When Misa had drained her cup, Light pulled her into his arms and kissed her slowly. Misa responded eagerly, sliding his shirt off of his shoulders and burying her hands in his hair.

“The bedroom,” Light whispered. Misa nodded eagerly, pushing herself closer against him. But as they passed the threshold, she began to yawn – wide, gaping yawns, as if she were coming apart at the seams like a badly stitched doll.

“Sorry,” she murmured, blushing. “I don't know why I feel so tired suddenly. . .”

“It’s been a long night,” Light said. He sat down on the bed and guided Misa’s head onto his shoulder. “Why don’t you rest your eyes for a moment . . .”

“I couldn’t possibly do that,” Misa protested. “It’s our wedding nigh –” A giant yawn kept her from finishing. Her eye-lids began to flutter. With a quiet sigh, Misa’s eyes slid shut and she fell back against the blankets.

“Light.”

Light watched her breath rise and fall. When he was sure she was fast asleep, he shifted her legs so that she was lying properly on the bed, and stood.

“Li-ight.”

Moonlight trickled in through the windows. Light crossed the room and pulled the curtains shut, shrouding the room in darkness.

“Light!”

Finally, Light turned around. “What is it, Ryuk?”

The shinigami flapped its wings. “I was watching you. You put something in her tea.”

“Your point, Ryuk?”

“I’m just confused, that’s all. I thought this mating ritual was the whole point of all that nonsense with the priest.”

Light didn’t respond.

Ryuk floated in the air after him as he left the bedroom. “She’s not going to give up, you know. And you can’t drug her tea every night.”

In the kitchen, Light poured himself another cup. The heat had already sapped away; the liquid was lukewarm. L had always served his tea that way, he remembered suddenly: never hot enough to cut through the cold of the concrete floors and the chill florescence of the lights.

Light placed his cup of tea in the microwave for eighty seconds. When he removed it, the naked heat of the cup made the pads of his fingers tingle. He'd always loved the sensation of heat, the way it seeped in through the pores of his skin, filling him up.

When he was younger, they had made clay figures in art class. Light had hated that. The clay made his fingers strange and distant and his figure, once made, was queasily perilous, soft and open to re-molding. It made his stomach twist. As he'd walked home that afternoon, a strangely vivid sequence had played in his mind. He'd imagined another boy's thumb coming out of nowhere, pushing down on his figurine's soft clay head, pushing down until it was destroyed. He'd thought of his own body, soft and pliable; he'd taken his mother's iron from the cabinet, held it to the underside of his arm, and pushed its hot face into the smoothness of his skin.

The next day their figurines were returned from the kiln: hard, burnished, immortal.

“I was imprisoned for fifty-three days,” Light said quietly, as if to himself. “During that time my arms were handcuffed behind my back. At first it was merely an annoyance. But slowly the pain increased. My whole body burned. Just when I thought the pain was unbearable, it ceased. I went numb.”

Light took a slow sip of tea.

“During my time handcuffed to L, I had no privacy. I dressed, undressed, and bathed under his eye. In that sense, he owned my body, whether he cared to touch it or not.”

 _Let her have me_ , he thought, suddenly furious, his hand clenching tight around the teacup. _Let my body be her alter. She can ruin herself against my idol, and the only bruises will be her own._

Ryuk's laughter was like water, boiling over, like the city in summer, when the air was somehow too much to contain, when thunder groaned and thrust the clouds aside like heavy covers.

Light thought of heat: a heat that overwhelmed, a heat so total it erased physicality, a heat that would shape and hold. He drank his tea, feeling how the burn made his tongue go rigid: he held himself still, and waited, for the morning sun to burnish him gold.


End file.
